


On Wings of Song

by Edonohana



Category: Dragonriders of Pern - Anne McCaffrey
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Impression (Dragonriders of Pern)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-26 21:27:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17149370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Edonohana/pseuds/Edonohana
Summary: Menolly's life takes a different path.





	On Wings of Song

**Author's Note:**

  * For [basketofnovas (slashmarks)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/slashmarks/gifts).



New weyrlings always got the most tiresome jobs. Not while their dragons were fledglings—then they had no work other than caring for their dragon, and that was no chore at all. But once their dragon was able to endure long flights and go safely _between_ , why then it was fetch this and carry that, convey this message to a person who will be displeased to receive it and deliver the Weyrleader’s request for something to a person who won’t want to give it. 

As a new weyrling whose dragon was fully capable of the most difficult and dangerous feats of flight, who’d once practically run the entire Weyr herself or at least had handled all the tasks that weren’t in Manora’s capable hands, and who was the first female rider of a fighting dragon in at least a hundred Turns, naturally it was Mirrim who was singled out to go to the most backward, out-of-the-way Hold to request fresh fish for the Hatching feast. She supposed she should count herself lucky that the fish would be packed in a barrel rather than shoved straight into her arms, wet and slimy and…

 _Fishy_ , remarked Path, and sent an image of Mirrim clutching a fish nearly as big as herself, followed by one of Path nipping it out of her arms and swallowing it in one gulp. Path liked fish. 

Mirrim stifled a laugh. There were other weyrlings about, and men and women of the Weyr. She wasn’t going to let them think she wasn’t taking her annoying chore seriously. But she laughed inside, where Path could hear and know that her image of Mirrim embracing the huge slippery fish had been appreciated. 

She checked her supplies and riding straps for the third time. _Let’s go!_

Path launched herself into the air. The bright summer sun shone through her translucent wings, making them glow like colored glass and casting flickering green light beneath. Mirrim gloried in the beauty of her dragon, her ease in the air that was her natural home, the joy of flight, and the love between them. What did it matter that her Impression had strained her already-difficult relationships with other weyrlings, when it had brought her and Path together?

 _I have you,_ Path said, spiraling upward and leaving Benden Weyr, a small thing when seen from high above, behind them. _You are all I need_.

Mirrim blinked back the tears that would freeze painfully _between_. She didn’t know if they were because she loved her dragon so, or because she wished that she too had all her needs and desires already fulfilled. 

She pictured Half-Circle Sea Hold as seen from above, its white waves and the landmark of the Dragon Rocks, and gave Path the command to go _between_.

 

Menolly had always been taught that no one could live Holdless. You sheltered within the stone walls of a Hold or you died. As she gave the rock pinning her foot another fruitless shove, she wondered if that was a truth that had caught up with her at last or simple bad luck.

 _Bad luck,_ she decided. This was the kind of accident that could have easily happened to her before she ran away, on one of her day-long gathering expeditions. Then as now, nobody would have been there to help her. Bitterly, she knew that probably no one would have even gone to search. As far as she’d ever been able to tell, no one had searched for her when she’d run away.

Her fair of fire lizards flew around her, creeling and chattering. Beauty hovered in midair, her golden wings beating furiously and her eyes whirling red with anger, then gave a piercing shriek. The entire fair settled down on the rock, scrabbling for purchase with their claws, and resumed their efforts to lift it. Menolly bent over and added her own strength, though she was in an awkward position and she could feel the strain on her back. But she had to keep trying. She had no other choice. It wasn’t as if she could call for help. The world narrowed itself to her effort.

Hot air buffeted her and blew the sweat-soaked tendrils of hair out of her eyes. A green dragon folded its wings and landed neatly on the narrow beach. 

Its rider pulled off her helmet and revealed a girl of Menolly’s age with a black braid coiled and pinned to her head. She jumped off and covered the ground between them in two strides, saying, “Is your foot crushed? Or just pinned?”

Dazed, Menolly replied, “Just pinned, I think. See, there’s a trench in the stone.”

The rider knelt beside her and examined the stone furrow her leg lay in, squeezing her warm fingers into the gap too narrow for Menolly to tug her foot through. “Yes. Good. You were lucky. Path, it’s safe to move it.”

The rider stepped clear, and the dragon set her foot against the rock. She was so close that Menolly could smell the acrid firestone odor that hung about her and see the soft smoothness of her hide. The green dragon pushed, and the rock rolled over. Her foot was freed. 

Before Menolly could examine herself for injuries, the rider was back in place, gently manipulating her ankle and then stripping off her boot. Her foot and ankle were patched with red, sore but not swollen or numb. “You’re lucky. It’s only bruised. I can’t think how it didn’t fall on your head.”

“Oh, it didn’t happen when I was walking. I was climbing the cliff. I tried to roll clear.” 

The dragonrider cast a critical glance at the cliff face. “Doesn’t look very stable to me. What were you thinking, trying to climb it?”

“I climb it every day, and it’s always held before,” Menolly said, then remembered the hatching of her fair and how the whole cave entrance had crumbled away under her desperate hands. “Well… except once.”

“Every day?” The rider looked around the beach and bluff. “This is a long way from Half-Circle Sea Hold. What’s here that’s worth coming every day?”

Menolly’s mouth went dry. Until the rider had mentioned her Hold, she’d forgotten that she hadn’t had a conversation with another human being in… a whole Turn? Had she really lived here so long, free and Holdless, alone with her fire lizards and her music?

Would the rider take her back?

_Don’t be frightened._

Menolly started at the voice in her mind. It was a clear alto, like the rider’s but more resonant. 

“Path speaks to you?” Now the rider was the one who sounded surprised. She looked at Menolly with new respect. “I’m Mirrim, Path’s rider, of Benden Weyr.”

“I’m Menolly, of… Dragonrider, please don’t tell anyone that you saw me. I’m harming no one, living here.”

“You _live_ here? Alone?” 

Menolly was about to indicate her fire lizards when she realized that her entire fair had vanished. They must have gone _between_ when Path came near. “Well…”

A green fire lizard appeared in midair. Menolly first thought it was one of the Aunties, then realized that it was bigger than either of them. It landed on Mirrim’s shoulder, nuzzled her, then preened.

“You have a fire lizard!” Menolly exclaimed.

“Yes, this is Reppa.” Mirrim extended her hand and whistled. Another green fire lizard blinked into view. “And this is Lok… Wait…”

The fire lizard landed on Menolly’s shoulder. “No, it’s Auntie Two.”

The rest of Menolly’s fair returned in ones and twos, perching everywhere on Menolly but on her injured foot, crooning soothingly at her and staring curiously at Mirrim and Path. 

“And they say _I_ have a lot of fire lizards!” Mirrim exclaimed.

“I only have nine. I think these two are yours,” Menolly said, indicating an unfamiliar green and brown. 

At that, both girls broke into laughter. Menolly’s worry that Mirrim would send her father to fetch her faded. She felt sure that Mirrim wouldn't do anything to harm her, and sending her back to Half-Circle Sea Hold was surely that.

“You really live here?” Mirrim examined the boot that she’d taken off. “The sole is wherry hide, isn’t it? How did you sew it on?”

“I used one thorn to pierce another to use as a needle, and seaweed fibers for thread.”

“How clever,” Mirrim remarked. She took a closer look at Menolly’s clothes, which had been patched and mended and re-mended. “The same way you stitched your clothes, isn’t it? I must say, it’s very fine work. But how did you come to be living here?”

“I was out gathering greens…” Menolly began. But that wasn’t the true beginning of her story. And while Mirrim had no scars that she could see, grief and anger, frustration and weariness shadowed her eyes. She was a dragonrider, true, but she was also a woman riding a fighting dragon, which was something Menolly had never heard of. Maybe Mirrim could understand what it meant to want something that everyone said was only for men. “I’m the youngest daughter of Yanus, Lord Holder. I’ve always loved music…”

Mirrim listened, sitting on the beach with her back against Path’s leg and stroking the fire lizards that curled up in her lap. Menolly’s voice wavered when she began, but grew more confident as she went on. She showed Mirrim the scar across her palm, and answered her questions about her range of motion and how long it had taken before she regained the fine motion in her fingers. She even, when her fire lizards began to hum, sang her fire lizard song, to the other girl’s obvious delight. And under Mirrim’s questioning, Menolly told her all the details of how she’d survived, cared for her fire lizards, and improvised everything she’d needed. 

“You made your own pots?” Mirrim asked, obviously impressed. “Can you boil water in them?”

Warmed by her admiration and curiosity, Menolly said, “Yes. It took me a long time to get them that sturdy, though. I had to powder some minerals and make a glaze. I could show them to you… Oh, but the cliff.” 

Several of Menolly’s footholds were gone, and the remainder were now in a cliff face that did, in fact, look distinctly treacherous. 

“Path could help us,” Mirrim said. 

The next thing Menolly knew, Mirrim’s strong arm was around her waist, and she was being assisted on to the natural hollow in Path’s back. Mirrim easily jumped up in front of her, Path stood up straight, and they were level with the cave. 

Mirrim immediately stepped in, but Menolly hesitated. It had all happened so quickly that it had only just sunk in that she was riding on a dragon, even if that dragon was standing on the ground rather than flying. It would be her only chance to experience that tiny taste of what it was like to be a real dragonrider like Mirrim, and she wanted to remember everything about it: the velvety softness of Path’s hide, the play of muscles beneath, the height, the spicy scent mingling with that of firestone. She’d written tunes for her fire lizards, but what tune could match the majesty of a dragon? A big drum would be too heavy for Path’s lithe beauty; a harp, maybe…

Mirrim turned back and started to offer a hand, then reversed the gesture into one that told Menolly not to move. “Wait.” She cocked her head slightly, as if she was listening to something Menolly couldn’t hear. Then her intent expression cracked into a brilliant smile. “Menolly of Nowhere, would you like to be a dragonrider?”

“What?” Menolly exclaimed. 

Mirrim’s smile broadened into an outright grin. “Path just Searched you. And I must say, I’m not surprised. You Impressed _nine_ fire lizards! F’nor only has one. Even I only have three. We have a Hatching soon—would you like to stand?”

Menolly heard the words, but she couldn’t quite believe them. She was the rejected daughter of a sea holder, a girl surviving in a cave with nothing but her wits, her music, and her fair of fire lizards. The idea of going from solitude to _Benden Weyr_ was terrifying. The idea of being a dragonrider was impossible. 

“I… All those _people_ …”

“I’ll shoo them away if you don’t like them.” Coaxingly, the way Menolly might speak to a stubborn fire lizard, Mirrim said. “Come with me, Menolly. I’m the only girl who rides a green dragon. I want there to be two. And I want one to be _you._ ” 

For the second time, Path’s resonant yet feminine voice sounded in her mind. _My brothers and sisters are waiting in the shell. One of them waits for you._

Menolly still felt that unreasoning fear, but she’d felt fear before. She’d been afraid of her father, afraid of Thread, afraid to run away and afraid to stay in entrapment and misery. She’d chosen the better life, here on this beach with her fire lizards, despite her fears. Could there be a still yet better life than that awaiting her, if she only faced this new fear?

She straightened her back and cleared her lungs, as if she was about to sing. “I want to take my pipes.”

“Of course! Anything you can’t carry now, we can come back for.” Mirrim glared at an all-too-familiar barrel strapped to Path’s back. “I suppose we will. That fish takes up a lot of room.”

Once the packing was over, Menolly settled into that hollow in Path’s back. Her fire lizards clung to the straps, except for Beauty and Uncle, who burrowed into her shirt. Mirrim helped her strap in, showing her exactly how everything worked and how safe it was, but Menolly felt no fear of flying itself, only a rising excitement. Sitting atop Path felt strangely natural. When the dragon leaped into the air, Menolly tightened her grip around Mirrim’s back, but that too felt natural. And then they were soaring high in the air, with the sea and earth spread out below them. Path’s steady wingbeat was like the roll of drums, the throb of a heart.

“I’m going to tell Path to go _between_ ,” Mirrim said. “It’s cold and dark.”

“I know,” Menolly replied. “It’s in the songs.”

She felt the movement in Mirrim’s body as she shook her head. “The songs don’t really explain what it’s like. But it only lasts for three breaths.”

Then there was nothing but freezing cold. No light. No sound. Most terrifying of all, no sensation. She couldn’t feel her arms around Mirrim’s body, couldn’t feel Path beneath her. _Three breaths_ , Menolly told herself, but she couldn’t even feel her own chest expanding. 

Then they burst back into light and warmth and sensation. Path was spiraling down, into a great bowl cut into the stone of what could only be Benden Weyr. Her great body was vibrating with a hum that Menolly could feel down to her bones. 

As they came in for the descent, Mirrim said, “Path says the Hatching is happening now! I’ll take you straight to the Hatching Grounds.”

Menolly nodded, gulping. It all felt like a dream—a sense that dissipated abruptly when Path landed neatly at the edge of the Hatching Grounds, and Mirrim unbuckled her straps and practically hauled her down. She could feel the heat of the sands all the way through the wherryskin soles of her boots. Mirrim was shouting that she had a candidate and needed a robe. A dragonrider hurried up and thrust a bundle of white cloth into Mirrim’s arms, and Mirrim unceremoniously yanked it over Menolly’s head.

“Stand with the girls,” Mirrim whispered. “Nobody Searches women for green dragons, and there’s no time to explain. But once the dragons start hatching, you just look for the one that wants _you._ ”

Mirrim pointed, and Menolly saw a group of white-clad girls grouped by the biggest egg. Its shell had a golden sheen, but it was unmistakable anyway. The immense form of the queen dragon Ramoth crouched nearby and watched it with glowing eyes. 

Menolly’s fair of fire lizards had taken to the air, darting about excitedly and humming.

“Path,” Mirrim called. “Tell them to stay clear of the Hatching Grounds!”

A moment later, all the fire lizards vanished. 

“If a dragonet is coming toward you and it’s not yours, get out of the way. They can hurt you by accident.” Mirrim gave Menolly a gentle push. “Go. You Impressed nine fire lizards! You know what to do.”

Menolly was not at all sure of that. She’d picked them up in one hand and fed them spiderclaws, neither of which she could do with a dragonet. But she took her place with the girls, whose immaculate robes and neatly brushed hair made her very conscious of her tattered clothes and uncut hair. But no one paid much attention to her, nor did she spend more than a moment thinking about them. Everyone’s attention was on the eggs.

The eggs rocked in a motion that reminded Menolly of the candidates’ shifting from foot to foot. Did the dragonets curled inside also find the heat uncomfortable? More importantly, would any of them really want her? 

The humming of the dragons rose in pitch. Menolly hummed along. She might well leave the grounds disappointed, but at least she’d been part of a dragon choir. And then the hum stopped, cut off in mid-note. Menolly’s own hum sounded alone in the silence. She quickly stopped it, her face burning. 

The pop of a shattering eggshell made her jump. One of the eggs she hadn’t been watching had cracked, releasing a green dragonet. 

_Mine?_

Uncertainly, Menolly took a step forward. But eggs were cracking and breaking all over the ground, and dragonets were falling out, glistening and creeling and stumbling on uncertain legs. She had to jump aside to avoid a staggering brown dragonet and its sharp claws, then had to dodge again to avoid a skinny boy. The boy threw his arms around the dragon and said, “He says his name is Solith!”

The queen egg shattered. Menolly eyed the golden dragonet, wondering. Mirrim had wanted Menolly to Impress a green dragon, but Menolly had Impressed Beauty as well as the Aunties. Could she Impress the queen?

A plump redheaded girl knelt silently in the sand. The golden dragonet stopped still before her, oversized head upturned. The girl reached out to scratch her eye ridges. No word needed to be spoken; anyone could see that the queen and the girl were forever joined.

Everywhere around Menolly, Impressions were being made. Every moment, fewer unpaired dragonets were left. It was looking like the idea of being a dragonrider had just been a beautiful dream after all. 

Despite her disappointment, the beauty and wonder of it lifted her heart. She stood on the hot sand and tried to take it all in: the ecstatic candidates, the loving dragonets, the lives changed in an instant. A soaring, joyous tune. Experimentally, she hummed a few notes.

An uncertain creel echoed her tune. Startled, she looked down into the whirling rainbow eyes of a little blue dragonet. 

Menolly was filled with an overwhelming sense of love and happiness. Like Path’s first leap into the sky. Like waking up surrounded by nine fire lizards. Like Mirrim’s crisp alto, the first human voice she’d heard in a Turn.

_Can you hum again? I like the sound._

Menolly knelt and stroked the blue dragonet, humming. He creeled, accidentally squawked, and then managed a hum. The blue dragon had an ear for music. It wasn't long before they managed a respectable harmony. When they came to the end of their improvised tune, her dragon spoke to her again. 

Menolly raised her head, tears of joy running unheeded to her face, and spotted Mirrim’s brilliant smile in the crowd. “He says his name is Lyrith!”

 

Mirrim thought she and Menolly had already experienced enough surprises for a lifetime after she’d Impressed Path and Menolly had Impressed Lyrith. And for a while, there were no more. Mirrim and Path fought Thread, Menolly and Lyrith learned to fly, and Mirrim and Menolly realized that while they hoped Lyrith would fly Path, there was no need to wait for that to become weyrmates. 

The day Menolly moved from weyrling quarters into Path’s weyr, Mirrim made sure to give an extra-fierce glare to anyone who might even _think_ of saying something. She supposed it worked, because nobody said a word. As for Menolly, she had that dreamy look that signaled that she was writing a song inside her head. Sure enough, she pounced on her slates as soon as they unpacked them and started scribbling away at what proved to be a sweet and stirring love song.

And then the Half-Circle Sea Hold Harper ended up at Benden Weyr after he nearly got caught out in a Threadfall, he realized that Menolly was Petiron’s apprentice (which Mirrim had known all along, of course, but not that anyone cared), Master Robinton came to meet her, and their lives were once again turned upside down.

At the dinner where they’d all been introduced, at first Mirrim had been delighted when Master Robinton had identified Menolly as the missing apprentice he’d been searching for. Of course Menolly wrote such beautiful tunes that the Masterharper of Pern wanted to tell her so in person! Mirrim was thrilled to see Menolly’s talent so publicly acknowledged. 

Then Menolly’s eyes welled up with tears. At first Mirrim thought she was only overwhelmed, but there was obviously something else going on too. 

“What is it?” Mirrim asked. “You have Lyrith! And the Masterharper loves your music…”

“That’s just it,” Menolly managed to get out. “I have Lyrith. And I love him. But that means I can never have Harper Hall, and now I know I _could_ have. Riding a fighting dragon is my whole life now. Not music…”

Then Mirrim understood. Once she’d meant to be Headwoman of Benden Weyr. Manora said she was suited. But then she Impressed Path, and that dream had become a, well, a path she hadn’t taken. 

“It’s not _my_ whole life,” Mirrim pointed out. “I do other things that fight Thread!”

“My dear girl,” came Master Robinton’s mellow voice. “Harpers don’t live a life entirely devoted to music. They teach. They travel. They solve disputes, often. They suggest new ideas. If you were a Harper, and only a Harper, you still wouldn’t sit in a room alone, composing your lovely melodies. You’d do that sometimes, and other times you’d have experiences that would give you something to write about.”

Menolly sniffed hard and nodded, but she still looked sad.

“And,” Master Robinton went on, “Mirrim is quite right. Dragonriders don’t only fight Thread. They foster children, they study the past… and some of them are Harpers. Every Weyr has a Weyrsinger.”

“Could I…?” Menolly began.

“You’d need to be trained,” came Lessa’s crisp voice. “At Harper Hall, in fact. But I can spare one bluerider from our fighting wing for a few years, if it means Benden Weyr gets her back in the end.”

Menolly once again looked torn, glancing from Master Robinton to Mirrim. But Mirrim knew Benden’s old Weyrsinger well, and she’d been to Harper Hall, besides. 

“We can still share a weyr, Menolly,” Mirrim said. “Harper Hall has no space for a dragon to sleep.”

“Don’t forget,” Lessa said dryly. “Dragons go _between_.”

Then Menolly’s troubled expression cleared. “Lyrith says he’s happy to fly me to Harper Hall, and wait while I take my lessons. He says he never gets tired of hearing music.”

“And back again at night,” Mirrim said, squeezing her hand under the table. 

Menolly squeezed it back. But as Master Robinton began to explain exactly how it would work, Menolly’s grip relaxed and she began to absently tap her fingers. Mirrim smiled as she felt the creation of a new melody, right there in the palm of her hand.


End file.
